"The worst mistake of first contact, made throughout history by individuals on both sides of every new encounter, has been the unfortunate habit of making assumptions. It often proved fatal."
"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
Confucius on History"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew."
Abraham Lincoln on History"A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history."
Mahatma Gandhi on History"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little."
Franklin D. Roosevelt on History"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."
Thomas Jefferson on History"My education and background thoroughly inform my writing."
"It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power."
"There's no doubt that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction. And yet, several of the very best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation to save their lives."
"Predicting has a spotty record in science fiction. I've had some failures. On the other hand, I also predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of fundamentalist Islam... and I'm not happy to be right in all of those cases."
"Change is the principal feature of our age and literature should explore how people deal with it. The best science fiction does that, head-on."